-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Black voters allowed themselves to be used by Sen. Thad Cochran to win the Republican primary runoff for Mississippi 's U.S. Senate seat .

Cochran beat state Sen. Chris McDaniel by targeting black Democrats and getting them to vote for him in a tight race . It was a brilliant political strategy in a state that allows open primaries , where voters can cross party lines to vote . It also showed blacks -- and the Republican Party that ignores them -- that black voters can wield political influence .

Cochran won the runoff by a little over 6,000 votes . The runoff was triggered because no candidate garnered 50 % of the vote in the first primary , which Cochran lost to McDaniel by some 1,000 votes .

But make no mistake , Cochran appealed to black Democratic voters out of desperation . When was the last time we heard Cochran reaching out to ask for the black vote in the last six terms he 's served as senator ?

Cochran 's campaign suggested McDaniel was a tea party radical . The tea party has become code for `` racist '' among many black Americans , who overwhelmingly vote Democratic . Black Democratic voters allowed themselves to be exploited by Cochran 's boogeyman -- the tea party nonsense -- without looking into the policies and records of each candidate .

McDaniel was a conservative candidate opposed to illegal immigration , which harms black Americans . The black unemployment rate has been higher than the national average for the past five years and blacks often compete for the same jobs as undocumented workers .

Refusing to concede the election , McDaniel and other conservatives said Cochran played dirty politics by reaching out to black Democrats to win . It 's true these same voters will likely vote for the Democratic nominee in the fall . But I suspect McDaniel is just angry he did n't think of the idea first .

It was distasteful to see conservatives like Laura Ingraham accuse Cochran of race-baiting because he decided to ask black Democrats to vote for him . How is asking blacks to cast a vote for you race-baiting ?

While I do n't agree with how Cochran won and wish blacks were more informed about their vote , Cochran bothered to ask blacks to vote for him , something that apparently makes some Republicans cringe .

Even the Democrat-dominated Congressional Black Caucus has now applauded his use of blacks to win . Go figure .

Many blacks would say the Republican Party only works in earnest for the white vote . Presidential nominee Mitt Romney did a good job of winning the majority of the white vote -LRB- 60 % -RRB- in 2012 , but he lost the election because he ignored the minority and woman voters -- that is , he hardly bothered to ask for their votes .

This Mississippi primary race is a harbinger of what can happen to the GOP in future national elections if Republicans continue to ignore the black vote .

They will lose .

Instead of allowing themselves to vote solely based on misleading headlines and misinformation , blacks need to be voting based upon candidates ' positions on issues and how they affect them .

Come November , I doubt Cochran will really care about earning the black vote and taking the Republican message of equal opportunity and economic empowerment to blacks . Blacks just believed the hype about McDaniel being a racist and did n't dig any deeper .

Cochran will run in the general election ignoring black voters , just as the GOP has done for the past 40 years . This is n't a watershed moment . It 's another example of blacks throwing away their political influence -- as they have on the Democratic Party since 1964 -- and getting nothing in return .

Cochran demonstrates what many black conservatives already know : GOP candidates will only reach out to black voters , kicking and screaming , as a last resort to win .

This is n't the path to future Republican victories in truly competitive national races in a country where census data show the white population declining while minorities are growing .

The big takeaway from the Cochran win is that Republicans had better get serious .

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Crystal Wright looks at how black voters in Mississippi were used to win the Senate primary

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Thad Cochran appealed to black Democratic voters out of desperation , she argues

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The Democrat-dominated Congressional Black Caucus applauds his use of blacks

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Cochran 's victory was n't a watershed moment and did n't mean what many think , she says